Howdy, Flocks, Just coming from a WH grand dinner. The word is that Romney has lost it. The press has taken its toll. And, it is not yet October 1. Oh, my, the GOP was so easy to dismantle. The voters are so gullible as well. Just get the press, use the race card, and we are home free, as they say in European-Union.

Tomorrow-the NYTimes will say that election is getting easier. Nate will have new polls show that Romney is unable to be mathematically win. WashPost will have Cris C. say that Romney is finished. Now, the liberal press will show that GOP is not happy with Romney. We are going to destroy Romney like Chess. Every move he makes, we will have 10-moves to take him apart.

Gail C. will say that Romney had dog on his car, and so he cannot be trusted by PETA. Gail C. denies that POTUS ate dogs. He is a kind man. Romney is a bad, bad, man. Besides, the country is not ready for a Mormon POTUS, even REID said so.

NB: David Krone who was quoted in Woodward about challenging POTUS has apologized in person at the WH. He will be leaving his COS position this Friday. NYT will issue a retraction. Woodward has agreed to remove the incident of Krone and POTUS from his paperback. Woodward will NOT be invited into the WH in the 2nd term. WashPost will have a front-page apology tomorrow.

Quintessential Labs - my yellow male, recently neutered, is assuming the same position on the sofa until my son bribes him into occupying the crate with a slice of white american cheese. I want to be reincarnated as a Lab.

I know that a dogs life is short in comparison to ours, but they have nothing to do but be happy, but then I think about those dogs that have no one to be happy with or are treated very badly and abused. Then I look at my dog and he looks at me and I can see how he tells me thank you for being my dad and I look back at him and thank god that he put him in mine and my family's life.

If you know a dog that needs a loving forever home, do what you can to make it happen.

Almost two weeks ago, I heard that someone I once met was in the hospital and expected to die in 24 to 48 hours. Her heart was functioning at 5%, and her organs were failing. When I got to the hospital, they had decided to remove life support. The priest said the prayers, the air tube (whatever that is called) was removed, and we stood in there waiting for her to die. Very sad and somber. I held her hand for something like two hours, but she didn't die. I had to leave, so my husband came to trade off with me, and he stayed all night. He talked to the doctor, and the doctor said she would die any time, that she was just keeping on by emotion and excitement.

In the morning she was not dead. The next day, she did not die. Might she recover? "Absolutely not. She is terminal. Her heart is ruined as are her organs." Okay. Next day, alive. Next day, alive. Next day, alive. Why is she alive? "There is no medical reason for her to be alive. She'll die any time now." Okay. Next day, still alive. Alive. Alive. And so on.

Last weekend, the doctor had different news. "Her heart is perfectly fine." Huh? "God gave her a new heart." What about her organs? "They're fine." Huh? "I will never forget this case."

She is making plans for leaving the hospital.

A lot of people were praying for this woman. Looks like God said yes this time. Can't believe I saw it.

Almost two weeks ago, I heard that someone I once met was in the hospital and expected to die in 24 to 48 hours. Her heart was functioning at 5%, and her organs were failing. When I got to the hospital, they had decided to remove life support. The priest said the prayers, the air tube (whatever that is called) was removed, and we stood in there waiting for her to die. Very sad and somber. I held her hand for something like two hours, but she didn't die. I had to leave, so my husband came to trade off with me, and he stayed all night. He talked to the doctor, and the doctor said she would die any time, that she was just keeping on by emotion and excitement.

In the morning she was not dead. The next day, she did not die. Might she recover? "Absolutely not. She is terminal. Her heart is ruined as are her organs." Okay. Next day, alive. Next day, alive. Next day, alive. Why is she alive? "There is no medical reason for her to be alive. She'll die any time now." Okay. Next day, still alive. Alive. Alive. And so on.

Last weekend, the doctor had different news. "Her heart is perfectly fine." Huh? "God gave her a new heart." What about her organs? "They're fine." Huh? "I will never forget this case."

She is making plans for leaving the hospital.

A lot of people were praying for this woman. Looks like God said yes this time. Can't believe I saw it.

Beautiful and merciful of God's grace to his children. Thank you for putting that here so I could read it.

Somewhat humorously, the prayers for healing were sort of an afterthought. The main thrusts of the prayers had been comfort and grace. "Oh, and if you want to glorify yourself by granting a miraculous healing, that would be great. Thy will be done." (Not an exact quote, but that was the idea.) I think one doctor described her as already dead, not meaning that she was actually already dead, but that there was no getting off the death train now. Ha ha to him.

I'm tempted to nick this picture and take the dogs and save them for future use as the flying sleeping dogs.

They sweep in from the side and slow down to sniff, then flip and sniff the opposite direction, flip and sniff and flip and sniff bigger and bigger or smaller and smaller to show approaching or leaving. Or to simply follow or hang around.

When you stick your nose in the carpet like that then that's what you smell and for a dog after a long day of heavy sniffing that simplified smell or simplified combination of smells is a comfort.

Unless it's like my carpet presently, for I am presently housekeeperless and my carpet would be a matter of intense curiosity for a dog, even after a long day of sniffing so there would be little rest.

It's like erasing it with a vacuum cleaner.

After vacuuming was the best time to play hide-y-seek with the dogs, I felt, I don't know if it's true or not, and after it rained outside too. I would push a toy around and make a smell path to the hiding place and start them out at the beginning and they would always find it.

"here's the smelly patch, get'cher toy! Get'cher toy! Get'cher toy!

My Deutsch Schäferhund, Susan, and he would appreciate you respect his life choices, was so good at it he'd follow the trail up or down, down into a window well and get stuck in there, up to the roof of a shed and then be a big 'fraidy baby to jump down, up to the top of a six foot fence post, a fork in a tree eight feet or so up.

I'm watching "Revolution" on tape delay; I've only seen about a minute, which goes as follows:

A guy who knows that all electronic devices are about to die gets home to his wife and starts blurting out instructions, including "we don't have much time." But it turns out that that doesn't mean there isn't enough time for a dramatic pause.

Next scene: he gets someone -- his brother? -- on the phone. "Hi. Where have you been? I've been trying to call you. I could spend the twenty seconds we have trying to communicate actual information, but I'd rather exchange pleasantries and scold you for not being at my beck and call."Note: "trying" - the attempt at perfect efficiency would be imperfect, obviously, especially considering the tryer is flustered by the whole end-of-civilization thing, but I hope a remotely normal human would keep the "where have you been when I've been trying to call" to himself for a while.

I'm going to keep watching for now, but as Glenn Reynolds keeps saying of jet-setting global warming scolds, I would find the whole thing more believable if the guy warning of a crisis acted like there's a [expletive deleted] crisis.

I finally watched the long trailer for Revolution. Parts seemed like... well, that's okay. Parts seemed like... wow, is that dumb. Oh, didn't see *that* coming because of *course* anything called a militia is the bad guys and of *course* a militia brands it's members and no one freaking NOTICES.

Sigh.

Why couldn't they just have paid Steve Stirling and just *done* the change series books? I'd love to see Lord Bear brought to life.

Love love love these Bingo and Joey posts! And belated congrats to the Dog Jog champs...a grand honor (and for a very good cause!) Kudos to you and Meade, your hearts are obviously big to love these guys so much even while they are not your own.

Synova: I wasn't interested in "Revolution" until I saw a review that was partially favorable and partially unfavorable, and the main unfavorable point was that it was too "TEA Party". I don't consider myself part of that movement, but I'm more than a little sympathetic to it and certainly not likely to use it as an epithet unless, possibly, I could mean people who have solid values but are naive about politics because they prefer to mind their own business. 25 minutes in, I'm guessing the writer who saw "TEA Party" as a biting condemnation doesn't distinguish between upper-middle class limited-government pro-civilization semi-libertarians who dominate the TEA Party movement and pro-Snow Crash anarchists.

I bet I'm supposed to like Charlie more than the "militia" leader, but so far I don't like her at all and I'm somewhat sympathetic to him. I assume I'll hate him more soon enough, if I keep watching.

Speaking of new shows, I watched "Guys with Kids" last week because the TV happened to be on that channel. It was better than I expected, but not by enough that I can recommend it. I did see some potential, and if it surprises me by lasting more than six episodes, I might see whether it's grown.

Just got my results back from my annual CT scan looking for the evil Cancer to return. All clear for another year. Hallelujah! Now my mind can "get some rest", then back to life full speed tomorrow. Life is good - very, very good.

I tried to watch Revolution for my wifes sake. She loves this sort of distopia clap trap. All I see is Lost in Chicago, and Lost was just Gilligans Island without the 2 hawt chicks(I had a <3 on for Ginger and MaryAnn). She kept waking me up so O saw most of it. The scene where Charlie's Uncle asswhips 20 younger guys with swords and rifles pretty much did me in though. And you gotta' love the back-asswards cross bow. Jeez, please spare me.

Beck had an interview with a DOJ guy tonight relating the story of Blind Mello Yello, the Jelly Belly Toe Jam Man being sent to Mosri...for humanitarian reasons...lik the Lockerbie guy. I can see this.

And Doug Ross has a graph showing how skewed the weighting is on every poll except Rasmussen id "pushing" Zero to at best a statistical tie. Here's the address--http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2012/09/must-see-proof-corrupt-media-corrupt.html

Sorry Ap, Zero is going down like a car with an innocent girl in it, driven into a river by a Kennedy.

And I love it when the government beclowns itself. The Fed Branch in San Francisco decided to do a poll about QE3. And then left a "make your own comment" space open. Hilarity ensued when such choices as "Disasterous" were clear favorites, along with "thanks for the $5 gasoline", and "Fire Bernanke". My personal favorites were "QE to Infinity. And Beyond!", and "Zimbabwe" It was on Zerohedge, but I can't find it now.

Thanks Allie. It's always stressful waiting to hear the results. I start imagining that I can feel something not right, and so I end up expecting the worst. It's great to be proven wrong. WOOHOO!

Mathadras @ 8:26pm. Very true. It's pretty hard to imagine how a person could do as much for any creature as you do when you save a dog. They want so little from us, and it means so much to them. It's like a love multiplier effect.

Virgil: "I saw a bumper-sticker recently which read: "I hope I grow up to be the Man my Dog thinks I am." LOL!"

I like that. I Googled it. The T-shirt version is $33. I want it, but that's a lot dog treats, and my pack would accuse me of being out of touch if I bought it.

So I read back through and Freeman is commenting about having witnessed a bona fide miracle -- the sort of thing that makes Hollywood roll its collectivist eyes and send to rewrite because it's too implausible -- and Bagoh is commenting about the news that he's not dying and some Steven guy is commenting on NBC's "Must Crap TV."

So I don't know what those other guys are doing here, but I didn't think the crap TV got a lot better, though it did try to hook me back in at the end. I didn't come to hate the militia guy any more, and I did come to hate the daughter less, and a couple of characters actually intrigue me, but I don't think I'll be watching this again unless the wife ignores my advice not to watch the first episode and she decides it should be a staple. And it was my idea to record it in the first place, not hers, so I think she'll take my advice.

Oh: and, of course, the Hollywood guys who will send Freeman's story back to rewrite for being too implausible (or Obama's) will happily produce the pilot for "Revolution" thinking that it's not the least bit cliched, and that the coincidences just seem like natural coincidences - good "plot twists," really.

It reminds me of a negative review of "Act of Valor" which made me more inclined to see it, though apparently not sufficiently more inclined to see it that I actually would (I assume it will be on cable at some point). I can't find it, but the thrust was that the movie was completely unbelievable because the protagonists don't grow much during the course of the movie and the SEALs are all fairly similar in personality, rather than having one member of each standard Hollywood archetype (the black slut in the red uniform has to die first, dammit!). Essentially, it was a review panning a movie for lack of realism written by someone whose idea of reality was forged entirely by what they had seen in the movie theater.

(Wait, does the virgin die first or does the slut die first? I don't watch enough horror movies, apparently, to know how the world works.)

We who inhabit the lofty higher higher moral and ethical plane have concern for all animals, but not too much concern for that is heavy, so our concern tends to center around the lightest of the animal kingdom, hummingbirds for instance, and not so much their regular maintenance either, that is for higher moral and ethical plane inhabitants, and higher ground inhabitants, just a little additional care through the migrations concern us, especially during periods of global weather disruption. We collect things to decorate blown glass feeders specific for the family Trochilidae, bottles if you like, small ones to suit the occasional wayward bird, not to service an active thriving area.

Today I found a marble. By the trash bins. I looked down and saw it, a flat kind, like a half marble, easier to glue onto things, and I knew in that moment that Nature was saying to me, "Well here you go then." So I put it in my pocket.

And I know that with a certainty, the same certainty you have when you're speaking to someone and know you are getting across, the exact same way I know Nature was saying "Well here you go then" when it handed me twenty extra dollars out of the machine right after I bought that office bird a cast-iron pan.

Isn't that funny, a cast-iron pan? She was talking about cornbread and I asked her if she used a cast-iron pan and she said no and that lead to a discussion on the virtues of cast-iron pans with other ladies around who knew quite a lot about them and then the first bird sighed wistfully, "I wish I had a cast-iron pan but they're too expensive" and everybody was all, "what?" So I got her big one. And it was only eighteen dollars. Can you imagine that? Eighteen dollars for a huge heavy ass pan. She won't even be able to carry it home. And then right after that, and I mean immediately after ordering it, the ATM machine goes, "Well, here ya go then." I have not heard of that happening in banking history.

Why don't you just buy a t-shirt and draw that phrase on it. Draw a dog.

You take your little squeeze bottle of paint and squish the words out in a zippy zappy handwriting, with a careless aplomb, a savoir faire flare. And then an outline of your favorite kind of dog done the same way encompassing the whole side of the shirt. The trick is to do it quickly so that it is not labored. And the trick to doing it quickly is being certain about where your lines go. The trick about being certain where your lines go is practice them first. There. Zippy zappy and careless.

The pic reminds me of the controversy last fall where a local church (Gulnare Freewill Baptist, KY) issued a statement saying interracial couples could not be full members, exercise ministry or leadership, or receive church celebrations like weddings--only funerals. I found out about it becomes I'm fb friends with a former student whose dad is an elder in that church, and he was protesting this with the elders. It attracted a global media shitstorm. Not like that little church and its hillbillies would care what the world thinks. Damned outsiders. But the local Christians who vigorously protested, quoting Numbers 12 and calling out racism as a tradition of men. The church conference came in and nullified the elders' vote on a technical matter--it would require a vote by the whole membership and it would have to have a 2/3 majority. It solved their PR and policy problem but not the underlying racism.

The interracial couple wasn't even seeking to get married there. The guy is from Africa...a powerful lesson in Murkan racism.

"Tim, with the Niners off to a great start, you must be happier than Titus at a Bollywood film festival."

Joe,

I hope to never have any conception of how happy Titus may, or may not be, at a Bollywood film festival. I will assume you mean 'happier than Titus at the Folsom Street Fair.'

And yes, I am.

They are my team, and have been for at least 40+ years. I remember the Brodie years, losing to the hated Cowboys three years in a row ('70-'72), the Plunket years ('77-'78); hiring Walsh, winning with Walsh, getting season tickets (while still a teenager!), and everything that has followed since.

Three things are most gratifying. First, this is a legit, solid, from top-to-bottom, very good team. Better than there record is how good they are. Not all years are like that - teams pad their win-loss records over weaker teams (not their fault - you play who the schedule has you play), but the Packers and Lions are legit teams too.

Second, Jim Harbaugh. Every 'Niner fan familiar with history knows the value of a good coach. We have a great one. Yeah, he's intense as hell, and a red-ass, but his team will play like hell for him.

Third, Alex Smith. I was never a Smith hater, or a Smith fan - but I had watched the game long enough to know that the situation he came into, and the revolving OCs, did him no favors. I was at the Monday Nighter against Philly three years ago, when the fans started chanting for David CArr (!!) to come in off the bench. It was miserable for Smith here. From a perspective of persistence, Smith's story is redeeming. He'll never get the national pub (although I do note he's getting attention for his interception-free streak back to Thanksgiving '11), or light up the stats board, but it's his team now, and he's got all the team needs to take them to their sixth Lombardi Trophy.

Which may be this year.

So yeah - I'm really enjoying the ride, so far. Injuries could derail this, of course, but that's true of everyone.